It's very, very pretty. Reminds me a bit of Aion, both in what the world looks like and in the very anime-esque character looks. (Barring the male face that looks, I kid you not, like Clint Eastwood. Whut.) And, of course, there's a decent amount of character customization - a number of faces to choose from, and some ability to adjust the faces, as well as hair styles and what not. (There really aren't any black hairstyles for human women, though, which is odd.)
 

 

You have a bit of a story based on the background you "build" in character creation - there's a set of choices for each race and your personal story draws on them. (Though the stories can seem kind of odd, depending on the profession (class) you took. Be a street rat Thief and, after having participated in a battle, even the captain of the guard doesn't mention your former activities. Whut.)
 

 

You can move when you're casting. And gathering things can be gathered by everyone - the nodes don't disappear if someone else gathers them. Likewise, you don't have to group to get named thingies, just fight them with everyone else and you get credit.
 

 

 

It's very clearly designed for horny fifteen year olds who like women. The female character idle animations look more appropriate to a club setting (or possibly a porno) "Ooh, look at me, I'm so hot, teehee" And female magic users (Mesmers and Elementalists) start out in... er... Hi, I work in a brothel clothing (or is that "clothing"), including skirts so short you can see their undies when they run. The fuck?
 

 

It's not a very responsive game, especially as far as character movement goes. After playing it for a day, I went back to SW:TOR and was drunkenly staggering around because, hey, the game actually responds to my mouse movements.
 

 

Watching cutscenes is really boring when you have no input.
 

 

 

You unlock skills for each weapon you can use by using the weapons. You only have a handful of skills at any one time (depending on what you've got equipped, etc - what element you're in on an elementalist, for example), which is okay - MMOs can rather bury people in skills and action bars.
 

 

You can also dodge, theoretically. The lack of responsiveness doesn't help there.
 

 

I didn't really find the event based questing very immersive. Then again, I was playing with hyperactive squirrel guy - playing with him in SW:TOR also left me with no fucking clue what was going on or why.

 

 

 

Final verdict:
Watching a story play out does not, in fact, make it your story. Sorry Guild Wars 2, you've essentially got the same amount of story as WoW. Also, the idle animations and clothing make it pretty damn clear you don't want my money. Yeah, I like making characters I think are attractive. That doesn't mean I want to watch them gyrating like they're hoping I'll jump through the screen and do them.

I might play it with hyperactive squirrel guy and friends if it fell in my lap for free, but I'm not going to spend money on it.  Especially as it, like Aion is sexist enough in character/clothing design to piss me off.  I'm fine with games giving you the option to dress your character sexy.  I'm not okay with games making that choice for you.